Benjamin Bramer (15 February 1588 – 17 March 1652) was a German

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

inventor An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea, or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an ...

, and

adviser An adviser or advisor is normally a person with more and deeper knowledge in a specific area and usually also includes persons with cross-functional and multidisciplinary expertise. An adviser's role is that of a mentor or guide and differs catego ...

Early life

Bramer was born on 15 February 1588 in Felsberg, Germany to a Protestant minister father. The minister later died when Bramer was three years old. This led him to be adopted by his brother-in-law,

Jost Bürgi Jost Bürgi (also ''Joost, Jobst''; Latinized surname ''Burgius'' or ''Byrgius''; 28 February 1552 – 31 January 1632), active primarily at the courts in Kassel and Prague, was a Swiss clockmaker, mathematician, and writer. Life Bürgi w ...

, who was a prominent mathematician at the time. He moved to Bürgi's home in

Kassel Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in North Hesse, northern Hesse, in Central Germany (geography), central Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel (region), Kassel and the d ...

after being adopted. Bürgi educated Bramer from a young age, particularly in the fields of mathematics and architecture. When Bramer was 16 he stayed in

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

with his foster father after Bürgi was appointed to the imperial court. Bramer would stay there for five years before returning to Kassel to begin his career.

Career

One of his first jobs was as an architectural adviser to Count Christian von Waldeck. He advised him to construct a new church in the town of Widungen, but the out break of the

Thirty Years' War The Thirty Years' War, fought primarily in Central Europe between 1618 and 1648, was one of the most destructive conflicts in History of Europe, European history. An estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died from battle, famine ...

caused him to begin focusing on the design of military fortifications. One such fortification was the Rheinfels Castle which he improved for the Count of Solms. In 1635 he became the master builder of Ziegenhain Fortress. Bramer's first scientific publication was in 1614. Titled ''Problema wie aus bekannt gegebenem sinu eines Grades, Minuten oder Sekunden alle folgenden sinus aufs leichtests zu finden und der canon sinuum zu absolvieren sei '' he described various measures to calculate sines. He also published a work on vacuums titled ''Kurze Meldung vom Vacuo oder leerem Orte, neben anderen wunderbaren und subtilen Quaestionen, desgleichen Nic Cusani Dialogus von Waag und Gewicht''. In 1630, he constructed an early

pantograph A pantograph (, from their original use for copying writing) is a Linkage (mechanical), mechanical linkage connected in a manner based on parallelograms so that the movement of one pen, in tracing an image, produces identical movements in a se ...

enabling him to draw accurate

geometric perspective Linear or point-projection perspective () is one of two types of graphical projection perspective in the graphic arts; the other is parallel projection. Linear perspective is an approximate representation, generally on a flat surface, of ...

which he described in an earlier 1617 publication titled ''Trigonometrica planorum mechanica oder Unterricht und Beschreibung eines neuen und sehr bequemen geometrischen Instrumentes zu allerhand Abmessung''. Although he is typically not credited with the invention of the pantograph, his early design is superior to the pantograph invented by

Christoph Scheiner Christoph Scheiner (25 July 1573 (or 1575) – 18 June 1650) was a Jesuit priest, physicist and astronomer in Ingolstadt. Biography Augsburg/Dillingen: 1591–1605 Scheiner was born in Markt Wald near Mindelheim in Swabia, earlier margravate Burg ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bramer, Benjamin 1588 births 1652 deaths 17th-century German mathematicians 17th-century German architects 17th-century German inventors